Flickr/miss karenThankfully, many of the food trends I feared at the beginning of 2012 have not come to pass.

However, even in eight months, there have been some very noticeable developments in both the food we are served in restaurants and the way we cook at home.

Some of them are welcome and some less far less so, but it won't be long before everyone is jumping aboard the latest food fads of 2012.

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Doing Things To Bacon That Should Never Be Done To Bacon

Kim Bhasin, Business Insider

It would appear that the fact that bacon is proof that God exists and that he is a good god is not enough for some people. Now it is being candied, put into cocktails, covered in chocolate and used to top ice cream.

While some of these ideas might have merit, most are an abomination against an ingredient that is perfectly fine just as it is, thank you very much. I suspect that the next time I go into a restaurant and someone just serves me fried bacon, I may hug them so hard they'll pass out.

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No-Substitution Menus

During a recent visit to an L.A. hot spot for lunch, the server pointed forcefully at the menu's small print, which read, "All requests for substitutions or modifications will be politely declined." I live in L.A., so trust me when I say that I know just how high maintenance some diners can be. Being asked to totally rework a dish to fit in with someone's latest diet fad is both impractical and irritating. That said, the recent trend of restaurants denying diners the right to modify their dishes in any way indicates that too many chefs and owners are now viewing customers as a nuisance and have forgotten the very notion of hospitality itself. Hopefully 2013 will bring back some balance to the diner-restaurateur power struggle.

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Sustainable Supply

Now that the words "seasonal" and "local" have been used so much they have lost almost all meaning, it's time for "sustainability" to take a bow. Restaurants are clamoring to tell the world how little carbon they emit into the atmosphere. They recycle as a matter of course, create urban rooftop gardens from which to harvest produce and even have guidelines to make sure there is a consistent standard.

All of this is laudable enough and should be encouraged as long as they don't forget that, above all that, they need to be serving good food in a hospitable atmosphere.

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A Nordic Invasion

Unless you have spent the last year underground, you can't fail to have noticed that chefs from Sweden, Norway and Denmark are at the forefront of the latest culinary developments.

Noma, of course, is currently the top-rated restaurant in the world but has been joined among the elite by places such as Frantzen/Lindeberg in Sweden and Geranium in Denmark. The influence of the chefs' elegant yet simplistic attitude toward ingredients is already becoming apparent in menus across the globe.

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'Proper' Butchers

Daniel Goodman / Business Insider

After decades of being sold flesh of no discernible provenance by the supermarket chains, public tastes are changing and there is an increasing demand for meat from heritage and rare breeds of pig, cattle, sheep and poultry, as well as an appetite for some of the more unusual cuts that are now making appearances on restaurant menus.

Supermarkets are simply not set up to satisfy this demand, and this has led to the opening of a new wave of small, independent butchers such as Lindy & Grundy in L.A. and O'Shea in London, as well as a greater demand for the skills of old stalwarts like Pat LaFrieda in New York City.

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Peruvian Food

One of my favorite restaurants in my hometown of Los Angeles is Picca, where Chef Ricardo Zarate has taken the food of his native Peru to a whole new level. The opening of Lima under the watchful eye of Virgilio Martinez also shows that this often underrated Latin American cuisine is finally getting the attention it deserves. Look out for gourmet antichucos coming to a restaurant near you soon.

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Oak-Aged Spirits And Beers

A recent visit to Tales of The Cocktail in New Orleans confirmed that barrel-aged cocktails and spirits are all the rage. Many spirits, such as whisky, brandy and bourbon already spend time in oak to add color and flavor, but now barrel-aged gin and vodka are becoming increasingly visible on the shelves of good cocktails bars.

Top cocktail makers are also aging finished cocktails such as Negronis and Manhattans to great effect. Well worth seeking out when you visit your favorite bar.

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Single-Dish Restaurants

Anyone who travels will know that restaurants serving one dish and one dish only have long been common in Japan. Now the trend has arrived in the West, with places opening in New York, London and other major cities that specialize in one or two ingredients such as mac 'n' cheese, meatballs, burgers, lobsters and even the humble fry.

While some of these places can actually be rather good, I can't help suspecting that their long-term appeal will be as limited as their menus.

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House-Made Pickles

I do love a hot, sharp pickle, particularly with a sandwich of pastrami or corned beef, or even with a plate of fresh fish and chips. The problem is that so many of the available commercial varieties are far too sweet and lack the necessary bite to cut through the richness of the foods they accompany.

That makes the "rediscovery" of the pickle maker's art by both restaurants and home cooks all the more welcome. It's increasingly rare now to see house-made pickles not being offered in any decent dining establishment, and they are also very easy to make at home.

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Foraging

If you're a skilled chef, traipsing through the wilderness in search of Mother Nature's bounty can produce dishes that are lauded as the best on the planet, just as it has with Rene Redzepi and his Copenhagen restaurant, Noma.

The notion becomes slightly less appealing, however, when placed in the hands of chefs who are unable to tell the edible from the deadly, as was the case with Australian chef Liu Jun, who managed to kill himself and another chef by stir-frying deadly nightcap mushrooms.

When it comes to eating at restaurants where the chefs get much of their produce for free, the warning "caveat emptor" has never been more warranted.